The food consists of frogs and toads--the latter being preferred notwithstanding their poisonous secretion, which protects them from the attacks of most animals--occasionally of newts, seldom of fish; these snakes are reported to have a predilection for tree-frogs, and to feed occasionally on mice and birds, but most observers agree that they will not take anything higher in the zoological scale than frogs. The prey is swallowed alive, and, if not very large, four or five frogs or toads are often taken in succession; a case is known of a snake having swallowed twenty very small frogs at one meal. The young feed on worms and batrachian larvæ, in addition to very small frogs and toads. The Grass-snake gets on very well with the Adder, to whose venom it is immune. It has more than once been met with swimming in the sea, and a case is reported of one having been captured in the open sea twenty-five miles from the nearest land, no doubt carried away by the current, but still perfectly lively. The hibernating season is spent in holes in walls or at the root of trees, often under manure-heaps, and the awakening occurs in March or April, soon to be followed by the first exuviation and the pairing. _Reproduction._--Pairing takes place in April or in May, according to the climate, and the eggs are laid between June and August, the young emerging six to ten weeks later. It is probable that a second pairing occasionally takes place in the autumn, as eggs have sometimes been found in manure-heaps at the end of winter. Females do not breed until about 2 feet long, males a little sooner. The eggs number 11 to 48, according to the size of the female, and, after being produced in a string, stick together in a mass, without any regularity. The eggs measure 1 to 1-1/2 inches in length, and when newly laid are about once and a half as long as broad. They often contain at the time they are produced a more or less developed embryo. They are sometimes laid in recesses in walls, in heaps of sawdust near sawmills, under dead leaves, but preferably in manure, for which purpose females often approach farms during the period of oviposition. Holes near baking ovens at the back of village houses are sometimes selected as breeding resorts. The female rolls herself up, and by violent contortions makes a sort of chamber in the manure, in which she may remain for some days after the eggs have been produced. It is not very unusual for several females to congregate for the purpose of laying, and as many as 1,200 eggs have been found in the same hole. The young on emerging has lost the umbilical cord, and measures 6 to 8-1/2 inches. It often remains for a considerable time, sometimes until the following spring, in the hole or manure-heap in which it was born, feeding principally on worms. Very young specimens are never found in the water.